


The Laying of Hands

by daredevilmoon



Category: Downton Abbey
Genre: Gen, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-07-09
Updated: 2014-07-09
Packaged: 2018-02-08 02:02:22
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 381
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1922517
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/daredevilmoon/pseuds/daredevilmoon
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Prompt: "Only the sacred things are worth touching".</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Laying of Hands

Edward was tired of being touched - it seemed as though hands had not been removed from him since he had been pulled from the field poppied with English blood.

It was hard to focus as it was, his heart all in a heavy panic and his world a sudden swathe of night, but it was harder still with these new hands all over him day in and out. Soldiers dragging him and nurses poor-dearing him and the doctors touching him fast because they had dying men to tend to and Edward wasn’t dying in a way they could sense. He was dying in every other way, each day weighing heavier on his future and dragging it down, but, by god, he’d  make it through the night and _that_ was what they cared about.

He knew better than to blame them _,_ he  _did,_ but that old sentiment haunted him that only the sacred things were to be touched. He was sacred, just then - a poor wounded soldier. A lad with his whole life ahead of him now marked and scarred and to be pitied.

Soon, he knew, he would be no such thing. You couldn’t make martyr of the living. Nothing sacred lived unless it stood frozen to bleed for the weeping who wished to bathe in its blood.

Instead, he knew, he would be prove a grim reminder of the death of sons, husbands, lovers - of better men than him, indeed. Men who had been needed. 

He shied from touch as best he could with _that_ certainty dogging his days.

Still, there was something about the way Barrow touched him.

He almost _didn’t_ \- though he tended his dressings and wrapped his wounds anew - he didn’t linger, didn’t pity. He went about what he was meant to do with glancing touches and solid words that meant more to Edward than what any nurse or Major could provide.

Barrow spoke honestly, he spoke truth - and he touched Edward with what seemed that selfsame feeling.

So when Edward touched _him_ , pressed his grip firmly over Barrow’s knee when he seemed to need it - Edward thought once more upon that thought which had haunted him.

When he touched Barrow, the idea of the sacred seemed reborn into something _better -_ something real. Something which didn’t hurt.


End file.
